Introduction

The Development of Campana Reliefs

Architectural terracottas had a long tradition in central Italy, stretching
back to the 7th century BC. They were mostly produced from the same material
as roof-tiles and bricks, and they were similarly made in series.1
Etruscan temples in particular had their roofs covered with fantastic terracottas.
Architectural pottery reliefs occur again from about the second quarter of the
1st century BC, particularly in the Augustan period and especially in the ancient
area of Etruscan settlement; but they are quite different in style and form.2
This change may reflect the influence of other media, such as bronze architectural
ornaments which were used in a religious context; as for example to cover altars
or bases and to decorate the external and internal walls of buildings. The bronze
ornaments even sometimes share the motifs found on Campana reliefs, as for example
the bronze friezes of the 1st century AD on the walls of the basilica at Iulium
Carnicum.3

Stylistically many, though not all, of the representations on Campana reliefs
reflect the taste for neo-Attic classicism, as do the parallel arts of portrait
sculpture, wall-painting and glyptics.4
In form Campana reliefs were relatively small, shallowly modelled plaques, which
were more suitable for being seen at close quarters than from a distance. This
matches the fact that they are found not so much in temples as in private houses
and burial-structures. They were made with the help of moulds (matrices) so
preferred subjects could be produced in unending series. The most accomplished
and largest reliefs are found in the period of Augustus, but they remained in
fashion in the Julio--Claudian period, in other words until the 60s of 1st century
AD,5 and to some extent
into the 2nd century AD. By that time, however, they were mostly smaller, because
the moulds had deteriorated.

The Study of Campana Reliefs

In the first half of the 19th century the Marquess G.P. Campana formed a large
collection of Roman terracotta reliefs, and the type is still known by his name
as 'Campana reliefs'. His collection was sold in 1861 and was dispersed, mostly to
the Louvre, but also to the Hermitage and other museums.6
Campana was the first to discuss this type of relief in print. In 1842 he published
Antiche opere in plastica, a work typical of the first half of the 19th
century which devotes itself for the most part to mythological or antiquarian
explanations of the scenes on the plaques.

It was not until 1911 that H.von Rohden and H. Winnefeld published Architektonische
Romische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit, the first systematic study of the reliefs,
which is still of fundamental importance and to a large extent has not been
superseded. They collected the material scattered through the various museums
of the world, described the plaques and illustrated the them by photographs.
They organised the material by types, and they suggested a line of development
on stylistic criteria.

The larger importance of Campana reliefs as evidence of the eclectic taste
of Roman art should subsequently have become evident in the light of studies
of Arretine pottery and of neo-Attic reliefs, which illuminated themes and motifs
in the iconography of Campana reliefs.7
But there was for a long time no attempt to think through the art-historical
problems of Campana reliefs beyond the assessment by von Rohden and Winnefeld
in 1911.8

There is among the reliefs a wealth of interesting pictorial motifs -- illustrations
of the myths of the gods and heroes, cult scenes, representations of Bacchic
themes and of Roman life (for example, representations of the circus, the theatre,
and prisoners, and allegories of victory), as well as decorative figure-- and
animal-- groups and plant and ornamental motifs. The art-historical problems
of this material were only confronted in 1968, when Borbein attempted to pick
out the antecedents of certain scenes on Campana reliefs in order to analyze
how different artistic experiences came together and integrated in the creative
eclectic process of Roman art.9Borbein also tried, by iconographic and stylistic analysis, to understand
what principles guided the craftsman in creating the reliefs. He concluded that
the craftsman did not ever copy passively older or more important works, but
transformed the original motifs with original contributions.

Apart from Borbein's work the most important step forward in the study of Campana
reliefs came when deep excavations took place on the Palatine in the area of
the buildings of Octavian-Augustus-- the House of Augustus, the libraries, the
columned halls and official rooms. The excavations began in 1956; but the significant
date for the study of Campana reliefs is Carretoni's publication in 1972 of
the spectacular plaques from the temple of Apollo-Palatinus, some with their
original paint.10This prompted new interest in the whole corpus of material, and particularly
significant studies have been published by Rizzo, Tortorella and Strazzulla.11

Rizzo's study, published in 1977, drew attention to the fact that in the Museo
Nazionale Romano there were distinct groups of reliefs with exact and chronologically
significant provenance, for example those from the Villa of Voconius Pollio
at Marino, from the columbaria of Porta Maggiore and of Pietra Papa at Porto
Fluviale di S. Paolo. This offered the possibility of understanding the function
in relation to the structures in which they were found and also of dating some
types of reliefs or their variants.

Rizzo extended her investigation to take in other groups of certain provenance,
some of which were known to von Rohden, and others of which came to light in
later excavations, particularly the reliefs from the temple of Apollo on the
Palatine. The comparison of chronological indications offered by the place of
discovery with those offered by earlier- iconographic and stylistic examinations
allowed her to attribute some types to dated phases of the decoration of the
buildings where the reliefs were found.

Tortorella and Strazzulla were working in parallel with Rizzo, but with slightly
different emphases. Tortorella concentrated on the geographical distribution
of types of buildings on which Campana reliefs were used, and also on the related
chronolgies. Those used on temples are found in Etruria and the area of Rome,
and they belong mostly to the 1st century BC, those on the temple of Apollo
Palatinus being both the latest and of exceptional quality. The reliefs used
an non-sacred public buildings (baths, basilicas, theatres, fora) have a similar
concentration, but with outliers to north and south, and their use begins with
the administrative reorganisation after the Civil War. The use of such reliefs
on private houses is much more frequent; but it differs from the other two groups
in that they have a much tighter distribution, with a few in Etruria and a concentration
in the area of Rome. They date from the end of the 1st century BC to the beginning
of the 2nd century AD, and they were used for internal decoration, not external,
like the other groups. Strazzulla has concentrated particularly on the significance
of the iconography, and has shown that in some cases it can be linked to Augustan
imperial propaganda, whether on public buildings, imperial residences, or the
houses of the senatorial aristocracy.

Left side of relief complete from top to bottom. Four pieces glued
together.
Decoration (l. to r.):

a. Palmettes over series of arches, beginning from left
with half palmette.
b. Dividing ridge.
c. Row of egg decoration: applied with a stamp in groups of four.
d. Left: Plant grows up from beneath foot of left figure, bearing
flowers and tendrils which fill field from top to bottom.
e. Lower back and legs of satyr facing right, his left leg being visible
in low relief.
f. Bunch of grapes in front of satyr's shin.
g. Fin-like lower portion of grape-bearing plant-support for basin.

Back: Mortar from top to bottom. (n.b. mortar has been scrubbed off
many of the smaller pieces)

2. G 10/82 CC 22 A (1) SF no. 82.183
H 7 cm; W 6.5 cm; Th 2.5 cm

Fragment of left side: top curve of lower tendril and straigh edge
of left side.

Back: no obvious mortar.

3. G 10/85
H 9.2 cm; W 10.2 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of left side: portion of left edge (2.5 cm) and portion
of tendril decoration.

Back: no mortar; impressions in the clay are linear (not wood grain).

4. G 10/82 CC 22 A (2) SF no. 82.348
H 14 cm; W 15.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of left side; portion of left edge (13 cm); portion of
tendril decoration plus ridge below; lower portion of shin, heel and
foot of satyr, but with toes broken off.

Fragment of left half. Decoration: tail of left satyr and parts of
tendril.

Back: traces of mortar.

9. G 10/85 CC 17 (1) SF no. 85.1
H 10 cm; W 9 cm; Th 2.2 cm

Fragment of left half. Decoration: left satyr's knees, right hand
grasping handle of bowl, part of bowl, part of tendril.

Back: traces of mortar.

10. G 10/85 X 23 (1) SF no. 85.9
H 13 cm; W 12.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of center. Decoration: part of tendril, lion-head spout
and falling water, heads of both satyrs, part of top edge of bowl
which is crenellated.

Back: traces of mortar.

11. G 10/87 Z 21/22 R (2) SF no. 87.54
H 13 cm; W 12.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of center. Decoration: part of ovolo frieze and ridge, lion-head
spout(face damaged) with falling water; head of left satyr; head and
torso with left arm of right satyr; portion of tendril to right.

Black deposit on left over heads of satyrs and lion-head spout and
ovolos above.

Back: traces of mortar.

12. G 10/80 X B (5) SF no. 80.58
H 14 cm; W 15 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of center and bottom edge (13 cm). Decoration: bunch of
grapes, legs of right satyr, portion of tendril, part of tendril forming
'stand' for basin, and bottom ridge.

Fragment of right center. Decoration: part of basin and part of right-hand
satyr (except top of head, tail and lower legs and feet).

Back: traces of mortar.

17. G 10/83 CC 18 (10) SF no. 83.82
H 8 cm; W 10 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of right bottom, but lacking flange and bottom edge. Decoration:
part of tendril and part of bottom ridge.

Back: traces of mortar.

18. G 10/80 X 18 B (3) SF no. 80.27
H 6.5 cm; W 14 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of bottom right with bottom edge broken. Decoration: part
of tendril and part of bottom ridge.

Back: traces of mortar.

19. G 10/85 X 21 F 142 (3) SF no. 85.63
H 9 cm; W 6.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of bottom right corner and part of bottom edge (5 cm). Decoration:
part of tendril and part of bottom ridge.

Back: trace of mortar.

20. G 10/82 DD 19 East (1) SF no. 82.139
H 10 cm; W 7 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of bottom edge (5 cm). Decoration: part of tendril and part
of bottom ridge.

Back: slight traces of mortar.

21. G10/82 CC 22 A (2) SF no. 82-271
H 12 cm; W 13.2 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of bottom right corner with part of bottom edge (13.2 cm)
and right edge (11.5 cm). Decoration: portions of tendril and part
of bottom ridge.

Back: covered with mortar.

22. G 10/82 DD 22 (1) SF no. 82.99
H 11.5 cm; W 9.3 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of right side. Decoration: parts of tendrils.

Back: traces of mortar.

23. G 10/85 Y 23 P (2) SF no. 85.166
H 15.5 cm; W 18 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top, center to right (made up of two fragments glued
together). Decoration: top arcade, ovolo frieze, ridge, top of mane
of lion-head spout, parts of tendrils.

Back: covered with mortar.

24. G 10/80 B 9 G (2) SF no. 80.181

Fragment of top right. Decoration: ovolo frieze between ridges, and
parts of tendrils.

Back: no mortar.

25. G 10/87 Z 21/22 R (2) SF no. 87.51
H 9 cm; W 7 cm; Th 2.5 cm

Fragment of top. Decoration: arcade and ovolo frieze between ridges.

Back: trace of mortar.

26. G 10/80 X 18 (1) SF no. 80.8
H 6.5 cm; W 6 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top. Decoration: portion of ovolo between ridges and
bottom of arcade arch.

Back: no trace of mortar.

27. G 10/84 CC 23 West (1) SF no. 84.98
H 8 cm; W 7.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top. Decoration: trace of arcade, portion of ovolo between
ridges.

Back: no trace of mortar.

28. G 10/84 DD 20 (1) SF no. 84.7
H 6.4 cm; W 5.2 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top. Decoration: palmette and parts of adjacent arcade.

Back: spalled off.

29. G 10/84 (Unstratified) SF no. 84.208
H 4 cm; W 4 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of palmette.

Back: traces of mortar.

30. G 10/80 X 18 (1) SF no. 80-7
H 8 cm; W 6.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of palmettes and arcade.

Back: no traces of mortar.

31. G 10/81 V 23 D SF no. 81.3
H 8.5 cm; W 5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of bottom center and bottom edge (0.5 cm) Decoration: bottom
of left plant support for basin and part of bottom ridge (2.2 cm)
.

Back: no traces of mortar.

32. G 10/80 BB 9 G (2) SF no. 80.206
H 7.3 cm; W 5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top left corner of slab including left edge (7.3 cm)
and top curving edge. Decoration: half a palmette.

Back: no traces of mortar.

There is a minimum of four plaques represented in the fragments. All the fragments
are from the same mould. One stamp of four ovolos was used for the ovolo frieze.

TYPE 1: Reconstruction

H 33.5 cm; Length 38 cm; Th 2 cm
Ridges 0.5 cm high; 0.5 cm deep

At the top of the relief there is a crown of palmettes, each fitting into the
angles of a row of arches, the arches standing on ridge A. Ridge A and ridge
B enclose a row of ovolos, each 1 cm wide. The ovolos were created by impressing
a stamp of four ovolos, the stamp being 6 cm long. Ridge B and ridge C enclose
the main panel. Below ridge C there is a flange 1.5 cm high.

Decoration of panel: two naked satyrs, with curly hair, snub noses and tails,
in profile to right and to left, their heads close together, stand on tiptoe
and lean over with the whole upper body to drink from a basin with a scalloped
edge and with the lower half fluted externally. The satyrs support themselves
by holding the handles of the basin, which are attached to the underside of
the bowl by S-shaped elements. The basin is filled from above by a lion-head
spout, from which water is shown trickling into the basin. Below the basin is
plant decoration in the position of a stand. The center of this decoration is
missing; but the plant is bearing two bunches of grapes at the level of the
satyrs' knees. The plant passes under the feet of the satyrs and fills the two
sides of the panel with tendrils, leaves and flowers.

COMMENT

1. Composition

The satyrs are shown as standing at diametrically opposed points of the basin
so the basin may be supposed to be circular and the water to be falling into
it at the edge. The basin, therefore, needs a support; but the artist emphasises
the fantasy of the scene by using a plant for this purpose. The satyrs stand
very symmetrically at both sides of the vessel on foliage which grows out under
their feet and fills the empty space behind them with multiple branches.

2. Motif

The motif of drinking satyrs is not very common. On Campana reliefs the representation
of two naked satyrs, who stretch over the rim of a big bowl to drink from it,
has various derived forms. There are two main types of relief with the scene.
The first is used on revetment plaques, and plaques of this type are higher
(38 cm) than they are wide (33 cm). The style of the reliefs suggests that they
represent a genuinely Augustan type. Von Rohden points out that the forms of
the ornamental band and of the foliage, for example, have a characteristically
Augustan appearance. However, a group of five nearly complete reliefs, found
in Rome in the bathroom of the 'house of Avidius Quietus' near the Porta Esquilina,
are dated not on their style, but principally because of the associated find
of an inscription of AD 82, to the second half of the 1st century AD. The second
type, to which the Via Gabina Site 10 plaques belong, appears exclusively on
cresting plaques. In contrast to the first type, the plaques are much wider
than they are high. The Via Gabina Site 10 plaques, for example, are 38 cm wide
and 33.5 cm high. The oldest form in which von Rohden could trace this type
occurs as a plaque from the Saulini Collection in the Glypthotek Ny Carlsberg,
which lacks a crowning frieze of palmettes. Examples of the same form have also
been noted quite frequently: in Würzburg; in the Casino di Pio IV; also at Heidelberg
(from Rome). There are three variants of the second type. The Via Gabina Site
10 plaques are closest to the main variant. This has an upper frieze of palmettes
and also has the normal egg and dart of the stucco relief, but executed more
plumply, and the forms of the satyrs' bodies and of the foliage are similarly
plump and robust with strong, high relief. The execution of the foliage is the
same as on the older variant. Von Rohden dates this variant later than the Ny
Carlsberg example. There are two other variants. Fragmentary examples of the
first are known from the Dressel Collection, and in the Kestner-Museum in Hanover.
They have a different palmette above and a different form of the lion-head,
which is closer to the heads of the satyrs. The lion's mask is smaller, the
trickling water is not shown, and the rim of the vessel is rendered more sharply.
A possible second variant is known from a fragment in Berlin. On the relief
the bowl is similarly wide and shallow; but it is not decorated, and it only
has unremarkable small handles. The foliage rising between the foot of the vessel
and the legs of the satyrs is missing, as on a relief in the Conservatori.

3. Use

The only available evidence for use concerns Type 1. Some reliefs of this type
are reported to have been used in Rome in the House of Avidius Quietus. Rizzo
suggests that these plaques were used in damp places as substitutes for stucco
plaques and so were fitted above and below with similar ornamental panels. The
circumstances in which the plaques from the villa of Avidius Quietus were found
shows that they were used for the decoration of bathrooms. This is, however,
of little help in conjecturing the use of the Via Gabina Site 10 plaques.

DATE

Which of the two types is the older cannot be decided. The thin, elegant forms
and the little ovolo and dart frieze of the second type plaques are very reminiscent
of a stucco relief from Hadrian's Villa. The stucco relief has two naked satyrs
sneaking up to a crater. Yet, even though the second type may be taken over
from stucco reliefs of this sort, the period when the original composition was
produced cannot be determined by such a comparison.

The Via Gabina Site 10 reliefs belong to the main form of the second type,
even though, unlike the Ny Carlsberg example, they have an integral upper frieze
of palmettes. From the style of the Ny Carlsberg plaque Borbein dates the type
to the Augustan period, comparing the precision and elegance of the design and
the deep relief to work in stucco from the same period. Rizzo confirms this
with examples from the Augustan levels of a group of buildings in Rome, at Pietra
Papa on the banks of the Tiber. The latter match closely those from G 10, and
so the G 10 reliefs are to be dated to the Augustan period, perhaps shortly
after the Ny Carlsberg prototype.

TYPE 2:
Race Crash (Type: von Rohden and Winnefeld 1911, pl. LXXXIV)

Fig. 2Pl. 2

CATALOGUE:
2 fragments

1. G 10/87 Y 21 S TNK 210 SF no. 87.95
H 16 cm; W 19 cm; Th 2.3 cm

Built into N wall of tank 210.

Fragment of top right-hand corner of slab. Decoration: frieze of
palmettes linked by rope swags; ridge; ansate panel with traces of
two-line inscription A(NNIAE)/A(RE)SC(V)SA ; female wearing peplos,
column to right, with right hand extended; circular building consisting
of colonnade of ionic columns (four visible, two to front, two in
profile), architrave above, surmounted by crenellation.

Back: covered in mortar.

2. G 10/87 Y 21 S TNK 210 SF no. 87.96
H 21 cm; W 13.5 cm; Th 2.3 cm

Built into N wall of tank 210.

Fragment of center and bottom right of relief. Decoration: three
horses to right (one rearing, two fallen), man to front with upper
body turned to left, holding reins of rearing horse and wearing tunic
with short sleeves, belted, and sides tucked up in belt; column (statue
on upper slab) to right of man. Two of the horses overlap the bottom
ridge.

Back: covered in mortar.

TYPE 2: Reconstruction

H 32.5 cm; Length 42 cm; Th 2 cm

At the top of there is a crown of palmettes, linked by swags of twisted rope.
The top and bottom of the picture is framed by ridges, though the bottom ridge
is overlapped by parts of the bodies of the driver and two of the horses.

Decoration: the background shows objects on the spina of the Circus Maximus
- the three columns of the metae; the arch carrying the dolphins for counting
the circuits completed by the chariots; and tight under the ornament an ansate
panel with an inscription in two rows reading; ANNIAE / ARESCVSA; a standing
figure of a clothed female figure, on a Corinthian column; and a two-storied,
crenellated, circular building, which is colonnaded on both levels. In the foreground
a chariot has crashed; the driver, who still holds the traces of the horses,
lies on his back to the left; the body of the chariot is tipped backwards, with
the shaft up in the air, though from its angle it has broken from the chariot
body; one of the four horses has broken away and plunges off to the left; of
the other three horses, all to the right, the back one is rearing, the middle
one has fallen, and the front one is falling; to the right a man, facing front
but with his upper body turned to the left, wearing a tunic which at the sides
is tucked up into his belt, is holding the head of the rearing horse; to the
right a second, smaller man, facing left and wearing a tunic, has raised his
right hand to his forehead.

COMMENT

The two fragments belong together, so only one example is attested from the
excavation.

On the lower fragment of the Via Gabina Site 10 plaque the two fallen horses
overlap the bottom ridge with their muzzles and one of their forelegs. These
projecting areas, which are unusually high, must have been in the mould. From
this it follows that the top and bottom ridges (which frame the pictures) are
part of the original bed of clay, not strips added after the main impression
is made. The whole can thus be made with one mould for the picture, and one
mould for the frieze (though the frieze of ovolos on the Satyrs relief is made
with a repeated mould - or master).

The final A of ARESCVSA is much smaller than the other letters, as in the matching
panels (Tortorella fig. 25). The same stamp is found on the other race panel
type (BM = Tortorella fig. 22).

The type forms a pair with the relief showing a four-horse chariot galloping
in the Circus. It is one of a number of Campana reliefs first studied by von
Rohden and Winnefeld, which depict circus events in considerable detail. They
can be divided into chariot races and wild beast events. The chariot races have
been classified by Tortorella and include three types, with two variants of
each of the first two types:

1. The first type is represented by at least two variants and over ten examples.
A quadriga approaches the metae at the right, preceded by a rider on horseback,
who wears the normal charioteer costume and has just rounded the turn. On the
ground in front of the metae is a figure crawling below the horses' hooves.

2. The second type, represented by two variants and at least eight examples,
shows circus monuments in the background and in the foreground a quadriga involved
in a naufragium, having just rounded the turn at the left. Attendants on foot
attempt to capture and calm the horses. One variant includes a tower with battlements,
the other has a pavilion with conical roof and doors or windows between the
columns of the upper storey.

3. The third type, known from only one example in the Louvre, shows a biga
approaching the turning posts at the right, with the dolphins in the background
and the seating tiers at the left.

The Via Gabina plaque is of the second type, in the variant with a tower and
battlements. There is only one example which is almost complete, in the Kunsthistorisches
Museum in Vienna. The ornamental frieze is the same as on the companion piece
of the first type, and it is matched on the Via Gabina example.

Von Rohden and Winnefeld note that a similar relief is illustrated in the Dal
Pozzo drawings (Windsor vol. VIII, fol. 53, no. 325); but they consider that
it is not likely to be the Vienna example. Only six other fragmentary examples
of the type were known to von Rohden and Winnefeld . It is possible that some
of these fragments belong to a variant, which survives only in fragments and
which differs from the Annia Arescusa plaque in not having an inscription, by
the six-sided columned building being finished with a roof crowned with a pine-cone,
and a somewhat different placing of the man in distress, whose head fills the
first intercolumniation of the building. In addition, the central, heart-shaped
element of the frieze on the variant is shorter and broader. These variants,
however, are not likely, in von Rohden and Winnefeld's opinion, to be taken
for companion-pieces to the the inscription-less variants of the the Circus
race because the latter seems older than the Annia Arescusa relief, although
the variants of the representation of the accident seems to be later than the
corresponding relief with the name.

DATE

Von Rohden and Winnefeld considered that the named relief and its companion-piece
should be attributed to the time of Claudius because the emperor had the posts
gilded (although the metae were carefully ornamented earlier). They concluded,
therefore, that the reliefs cannot be older than this date, and that at the
same time they cannot be much later, because they are closely related to the
other signed plaques from the early imperial period, and because the striking
decoration of the metae is most easily understood, if, at the time of the production
of the type, the decoration was a novelty. Overall, they consider the compositions
can hardly have been produced any earlier, because the numerous representations
of chariot-races in the Circus on mosaics, sarcophagi and lamps are all later.

Borbein has suggested that on stylistic grounds the chariot-race type dates
later in the first century, during the Flavian period, particularly because
of the impression of depth and perspective. Tortorella prefers to date the reliefs
with hunts to the Augustan period, the pairs of plaques with horsemen and hunts
to later than the Augustan period, and those with quadrigae racing to the time
of Claudius or to the early part of Neros reign.

Humphrey does not accept von Rohden and Winnefeld's linking of the plaques
with Claudius' work on the metae. While it is true that the metae are shown
in much more detail here than on other representations of the late Republic
and early Empire, he feels that it may not be wise to base too much upon Claudius'
work as a terminus post quem since the turning posts were decorated earlier.
However, Humphrey also acknowledges a Claudian or early Neronian date is suggested
by the signature Annia Arescusa which appears on the first group, and a date
in the first part of the first century AD is indicated by the limited range
of monuments shown on this group of plaques. Cybele and the obelisk are absent,
the latter possibly because its scale would have had to be severely distorted
but more probably because the original models for these plaques were created
before the obelisk had become established in circus iconography. The interest
in beast hunts in the Circus also suits the late Republic or early Empire. The
manner in which the animals and fighters run between the columns of the various
monuments makes it plain that there was still no continuous wall in the center
of the track; instead, there was a relatively small number of isolated monuments
in and around which hunts could take place.

Taking all the above arguments into account, Augustan - Claudian date seems
most likely for the Race Crash type. To pin the date more precisely would be
a matter of conjecture.

TYPE 3:
Herm (Type: von Rohden and Winnefeld 1911, pl. CXXXIX. 1)

Fig. 3Pl. 3Pl. 4

CATALOGUE:
5 fragments

1. G 10/84 DD 20 O (4) 007
H 8 cm; W 12.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top left-hand corner of slab. Decoration: half a palmette
with horn-like leaves below; portion of a whole palmette with horn-like
leaves below; portion of upper ridge, curved, with a group of three
diagonal slashes from upper left to bottom right.

Section from center, top right, and right side (12.5 cm), consisting
of 6 fragments glued together. Decoration: portion of frieze of palmettes;
portion of top ridge, rounded and embellished with groups of three
slashes; portion of figured relief, left to right - woman leaning
to right, wearing peplos, hair covered with folded cloth, holding
bowl with scalloped edge and containing unidentified objects to left
of her hand; male figure, turned three-quarters right, looking left,
reaching back to left with his right hand toward bowl, his left arm
around back of neck of herm; head of herm looking left, bearded, garlanded
with loop hanging down back of neck; woman looking left, her hair
not totally covered but possibly with a garland tied at the back.

Back: covered with mortar.

3. G 10/85 X 21 L (3) SF no. 85-70.
H 7.2 cm; W 10.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of body of relief. Decoration: left, part of a vertical
element, sloping up to left, matching the pillar of the herm; right,
portion of peplos, showing the waist-height fold of the upper half
and the pleats of the skirt below; far right, part of a stick-like
object, with slight thickening in middle sloping down from top left
to bottom right, presumably held in the female's hand.

Back: no mortar.

4. G 10/84 DD 20 O (4) 007
H 35 cm; W 24 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of middle of relief, including top and bottom.
Decoration:

a. Band of lunettes with horn-like leaves below.
b. Upper ridge, rounded, with groups of triple slashes.
c. Relief, left to right: woman, leaning right with cloth on hair,
wearing peplos, holding bowl with scalloped edge, and with scalloped
rim for base; satyr, standing on small platform, wearing goat-skin
shorts, three-quarters right but with head turned back to left, reaching
back with his right arm to dip sponge in bowl, his left arm round
the back of the neck of the herm; herm with bearded and garlanded
head looking left, two sides of the pillar showing, on the left of
which is a phallus.
d. Lower ridge, squared, above flange.

Back: covered with mortar.

5. G 10/83 EE 22 C (4) SF no. 83.66
H 12.8 cm; W 18 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of left side of relief including left edge (10 cm). Decoration:
two women - left, woman turned three-quarters right, with head in
profile to left, carrying urn horizontally on her shoulder with one
handle grasped in her left hand, wearing peplos but with material
dropped down from her right shoulder to her right fore-arm; right,
woman in profile to right, her head covered with a folded cloth, wearing
a peplos.

Back: covered with mortar.

At least three plaques are represented in the fragments.

TYPE 3: Reconstruction

H 34.5 cm; Length 44 cm; Th 2 cm
Ridges 0.5 cm hig; 0.5 cm deep

At the top is a crown of palmettes with horn-like 'leaves' below. The top and
bottom of the picture is framed by ridges, of which the top one is rounded and
decorated with groups of three diagonal slashes from top left to bottom right,
and the bottom ridge is squared.

Decoration: a herm being tended by a satyr and three women. At the left is
a woman turned three-quarters right but looking left, wearing a peplos which
has slipped off her right shoulder, and carrying an amphora horizontally on
her shoulder, one handle being grasped with her left hand. Next from the left
is a second woman, standing to right, wearing a peplos and with her hair covered
with a cloth, stooping forward to hold a bowl with a scalloped edge and foot,
which contains sponges and from which the satyr is taking a sponge. The third
figure is a satyr standing three-quarters right on a small platform, with his
head turned to the left and with his right arm stretched back to dip a sponge
in the bowl, while his left arm is round the herm's neck. The herm has a bearded
head facing left, on which has been placed a garland with a loop hanging down
the back. The square column of the herm is embellished with a phallus. The fourth
figure is a woman standing to the front, but with her head turned back in profile
to the left. In her right hand she seems to be holding a rod with an expanded
end (torch? thyrsus?), and beneath the 'rod's' end is a second object, also
overlapping the column of the herm. Her left arm hangs down vertically, and
near the ground is an expansion, perhaps representing the head of a torch held
vertically.

Interpretation: The satyr is washing the herm with water from the bowl. The
water was presumably brought in the amphora on the shoulder of woman A. Woman
B has covered her hair, probably because she is participating in the ritual
washing. The male is presumed to be a satyr because of his snub nose and his
goat-skin shorts; but it is not possible to see whether he has a tail, and it
may be that he is a satyr-like man rather than an actual satyr.

COMMENT

The representation of the decoration of a herm by a satyr and three women
is shown on other materials. The herm with satyr and bowl is found in the same
grouping on a lamp of the best period in the Röm.-Germ. Museum in Mainz, and
it also seems to have to do with cleaning or oiling. The same motif occurs again
on a fine bronze dish from Pompeii: a satyr places his right hand with an outstretched
index finger on a vessel, which stands in front of an ithyphallic herm. On terracotta
reliefs the representation can be traced in many forms; but the surviving plaques
and fragments give a very varied impression. The only evidence that the picture
was in use at a good period of production is a few fragments of revetment plaques.
The fine fragments in the Antiquarium in Berlin (nos. 3955, 4025, 4026, 4112)
are revetment plaques, and so they suggest that the type was produced in a good
period. The decoration of the Berlin fragments suggests that these revetment
plaques were covered in lively colours over a thick layer of white. The upper
border was white, as were the borders with the egg decoration, which themselves
were of many colours, perhaps alternately yellow and red, while the background
was blue and the cloak of the woman on the right was orange-yellow.

The completely preserved reliefs and the great majority of the fragments of
which the use can be determined come from cresting plaques. These can be divided
by their upper decorative borders into three groups:

Type 1. Palmettes, with inward-leaning leaves over inward-curling tendrils
which are not linked to each other, are a form which is known quite similarly
from the relief of Marcus Antonius Epaphroditus, and from Campana fragments.
These last are the three plaques which were once in the Campana Collection,
and of which two are now to be found in the Louvre and one is to be found in
the University Collection in Jena. Further examples of the same form are not
known.

Type 2. Likewise there is a form where the upper rim, referring to an earlier
period for its model, has palmettes which spring from a row of arches. It is
found on a completely preserved plaque in the Museo Kircheriano, which shows
striking stylistic peculiarities. The picture gives the impression of a quick
sketch, which has been modelled freely without a mould. The woman on the right
lacks her right shoulder, the folds of the dress (which has slid from her left
shoulder), and her right hand holds only one of the two twigs clutched in her
left hand. The plaques of this form also differ from the Campana plaques in
the loose hair, the shape of the twigs, and the folds, and it lacks the upset
basket, which on the Campana plaques is shown behind the woman. The folds in
front of the figure's abdomen are probably a reminiscence of the knot with which
the cloak was held round the figure's hips, as also for the old man holding
the bowl. The Campana plaques no longer have any trace of it. This Berlin fragment
also has traces of uniquely loud painting. There is a green undercoat and a
yellow overcoat; the leaves on the twig are yellow; the ground is bright red,
and the empty parts are now white.

Type 3. A third and late form of upper ornament is found on the right upper
quarter of a plaque from the Dressel Collection in the Berlin Antiquarium (no.
8217, 36). It has big palmettes, and what remains of the representation also
seems late in the quality of the pottery, with an uneven upper surface and a
dirty grey colour.

From this series it follows that the picture remained in use for quite a long
time, and moreover without any important alterations. Only in one point of substantial
significance can a difference in the representation be recognised. On the Campana
plaques and the fragment from another form in the Berlin Antiquarium (no. 3948)
the satyr busy with the herm takes from a the fruit-filled bowl, which is held
by a bent old man, a bunch of grapes. On the other hand, a plaque at Brocklesby,
related fragments in the Berlin Antiquarium (nos. 3949/4133), and particularly
clearly on the fragment from yet another form in the Antikensammlung in Copenhagen,
the satyr has a sponge or a cloth folded together in his hand, and nothing can
be seen of the contents of the bowl, and so it is to be thought of as filled
with liquid. It cannot be decided which of them is the older, (because it may
be an irrelevant chance that the fragments with the sponge seem to belong to
better examples than do the others), so long as no pieces are known which are
in the fine technique of the Augustan period.

The overall event is the same on both types of representation: washing and
oiling and decoration of herms. The washing is indicated by the woman on the
left with the two sponges; the decoration of the herm is indicated by the woman
on the right with a branch which is to be put round the herm, while the middle
group is linked in one case to the decoration, in the other to the washing and
anointing. The way the woman standing on the left turns her head back suggests
that the plaque has a counterpart with related content. In the late period the
representation of the Bacchic dedication certainly serves as a companion piece,
and it is probable that both go back to an older frieze-like composition. These
two scenes, however, do not need to have stood side by side, and so the figure
of the woman looking backward may have been directing her attention toward an
event which was not the Bacchic dedication. But the direction of her movement
and her close grouping with the old man show that it is improbable that the
figure itself must originally have been explained from the neighbouring event,
and that therefore she must have been indifferent to the action round the herm.

DATE

The Via Gabina Site 10 plaques are like the plaques of Type 1, in the Louvre
and Jena mentioned above, and generally accepted as Augustan - Claudian. Yet
von Rohden considered that the Louvre plaque is late on stylistic grounds because
it has ugly and proportionately too massive upper ornament, a thick bottom ridge,
and carelessly formed feet. If he is right, are the Via Gabina plaques to be
dated to the last part of the first century AD or the beginning of the second
century AD, rather than earlier?

Fig. 4

CATALOGUE:
7 fragments

1. G 10/85 BB 18 (2) SF no. 85.41
H 13.8 cm; W 12.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Two fragments, joined, of relief with part of right edge (8 cm).
Decoration: part of bearded and bald satyr, wearing cloak, carrying
basket filled with grapes, which he supports on his right thigh. To
left, tips of lion-skin cloak of young satyr.

Back: traces of mortar.

2. G 10/87 Z 21/22 R (3) SF no. 87.88
H 9.5 cm; W 7 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top right corner of slab including part of top edge and
part of right edge (7.4 cm). Decoration: palmette and half a palmette
at the edge, joined by double-line swags; top ridge, square in section.

Back: traces of mortar.

3. G 10/89 U 15 So. E (1) SF no. 89.15
H 11.8 cm; W 11.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top right of slab. Decoration: a palmette and parts of
two other palmettes, joined by double-line swags; top ridge, square
in section; top of head of satyr, including horns, looking left.

Back: traces of mortar. Comment: Same head as on no. 4 below.

4. G 10/85 X 21 (1) SF no. 85.40
H 11.5 cm; W 8 cm; Th 2 cm

Two fragments, joined, of body of relief. Decoration: right-hand
young satyr in center, in profile to left, head inclined down to left,
wearing lion-skin, his right leg advanced, arms outstretched, hands
clasping a ring, with the fingers of the left-hand satyr also visible.

Back: no trace of mortar.

5. G 10/85 X 21 L (3) SF no. 85.69
H 12.3 cm; W 13 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of top of relief. Decoration: left to right - part of palmette,
palmette, part of palmette; part of top ridge, square in section.

Back: traces of mortar.

6. G 10/83 W 21 L (3) SF no. 83.177
H 7 cm; W 10.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of bottom left of corner of slab including part of lower
ridge (10 cm), square in section. Decoration: part of a right foot,
standing on the toes.

At least two examples are represented in the fragments from Via
Gabina Site 10. The palmette frieze differs from that on the Voconius Pollio
examples; but otherwise the reliefs appears to be from the same moulds.

TYPE 4: Reconstruction

Maximum height 33 cm; Maximum width 45 cm; Th 2 cm

At the top is a frieze of palmettes, linked by double-line swags. Below is
a ridge, square in section, similar to that at the bottom. The body of the relief
shows a pair of opposed young satyrs in the center, wearing lion-skins knotted
in front, with hands clasping a ring, leaning backwards and treading grapes
in a vat which is seen in section, so that the grapes and the feet of the satyrs
are visible. On the left is a young satyr, in profile to the right, wearing
a lion-skin knotted over his left shoulder and passing below his right arm,
dancing with his left foot raised, and playing the double pipes. On the right
is an old, bald satyr, in profile to the left, wearing a cloak, and lifting
with the support of his right knee a basket of grapes and vine-leaves so as
to tip them into the vat.

COMMENT

The elements of the scene of treading grapes are as fixed as those of the parallel
pictures of the picking of grapes. Two satyrs, each with a skin hanging down
his back, dance round on a mass of grapes, holding a ring or a wreath with both
hands. On one side an old bald-headed man, with a cloak down his back, carries
a basket of grapes to refill the vat. On the other side a young satyr wearing
a skin plays for the dance on the flute, often wearing on his feet the kroupezion,
the high wooden shoe worn for beating time to music or for treading grapes.

FIRST TYPE

The examples of this type were reviewed by von Rohden, who showed that the
earliest versions occur in Caeretan fabric, as revetment plaques and as cresting
plaques. On these Caeretan plaques, which are far larger than all others, the
two wine-treaders are young. There are only a few grapes in the vat, whose front
wall is omitted. The flute-blower, who is moving in a lively dance, but without
buskins, is on the left, and the old man, who lets the basket slide down on
to the upper part of his thigh, is on the right. The oldest representation on
a Campana plaque is from Rome. It is similar, though on a smaller scale and
in a different style. The attitude of the figures, the length of their legs,
the shape of the vat with only a few grapes shown in it, the position and form
of flutes and the attitude of the left leg of the flute-blower, the attitude
of the old man, and the smallness of his head, the form of the basket with its
few fruit, all these characteristic details match the Caeretan model. The bald
head of the old man is new, as is the upper rim of the vat. The egg and dart
still has the Caeretan form; but the border over that is smooth, while the lower
border shows the usual Roman strip of palmettes. Characteristically for this
older group there is no important difference in scale between the figures of
the group in the middle and the other figures, and both flutes of the satyr
on the left are straight.

SECOND TYPE

One of the oldest forms is found on a fragment in the Kestner-Museum in Hanover
which probably comes from the same workshop as the Pelops relief of the Museo
Kircheriano. The object under the foot of the flute-blower is new and can only
represent a buskin, fastened to the foot; it clattered whenever the foot touched
the ground. Some plaques from Marino, which differ only slightly from the main
type of revetment plaques, show grape-treading, the counterpart to the first
type of grape-picking. There are no buskins, grapes hang out over the edge of
the old man's basket, and the vat is completely filled with individual fruit,
although the feet of the grape-treaders are still almost entirely visible. Most
important, however, is the difference in scale between the treading figures
and those flanking them on either side; those in the center are larger.

THIRD TYPE

The later group of cresting plaques, whatever the differences of the pictures,
has the same significant difference in scale between the figures treading grapes
and the adjacent figures. The flutes derive from an older representation. One,
held by the left hand, is bent in a regular curve. The earliest example which
has survived and tranforms the type is the carelessly formed and incompletely
preserved plaque in the Antikensammlung in Vienna, which by the peculiarity
of the upper rim ornament is related to plaques with the name of Arria Arescusa,
and by other stylistic correspondences with plaques from the Vales workshop.
As on the Berlin fragment, the grape-treaders have their left leg forward, one
of them is bearded, the front rim of the vat is shown with the grapes hanging
over it, the flute-blower is placed on the right of the picture and sits dressed
in an apron on an overturned basket. While he plays, he beats time with his
right foot. The exaggerated, lively movements, particularly of the dancing flute-blower,
are characteristic of the type.

On the Via Gabina Site 10 plaques the outside figures are smaller in scale
than the inner figures. Although the upper decorative strips are different,
in style the figures match closely those on plaques from Tuscolo and from the
Villa of Voconius Pollio at Marino. The Via Gabina plaques are therefore of
the second type.

DATE

The revetment plaques from Cerveteri (Caeres) are the oldest known representation
of grape-treading. There were no plaques with grape-picking in this series,
and the matching picture may have been dancing satyrs and maenads. Grape- picking
scenes, therefore, seem to have come into existence during the first century
BC. From the Augustan period, the grape-picking scene was used in combination
with the grape-treading scene. The earliest examples of this combination are
cresting plaques. These soon disappear completely, and the combination seems
not to occur on other sorts of monuments.

Do the finds from Tuscolo and Marino help with the dating of the Via Gabina
10 plaques? Excavations were carried out by Canina at Tuscolo in the first half
of the 19th century, and a great many Campana reliefs were found. The building
of one structure, the Casa dei Cecilii, took place according to brick-stamps
in AD 123-4, and this provides useful dating for the Campana reliefs found there;
but unfortunately the grape-treading reliefs from Tuscolo were not from this
site.

More help might be expected from the villa at Marino, which was named after
Q. Voconius Pollio, who was one of its later owners. The northern complex of
the villa was built in the first century BC, in the later years of the Republic
or the early years of the Empire. The southern part of the house was a later
addition, probably to be dated to the beginning of the 2nd century AD. A large
number of statues, marble fragments, antefixes and Campana reliefs came from
the villa. The greater part of the Campana reliefs were found in the northern
and eastern parts of the villa, probably having decorated the buildings in which
they were found. Unfortunately, however, the reliefs with grape-picking and
grape-treading were probably found in the southern complex, as Rizzo suggests,
and so there is a problem with their dating, because Lanciani dates this part
of the villa, on the evidence of plan and building-method, to the end of the
1st or the beginning of the 2nd century AD. The grape-picking and grape-treading
reliefs, therefore, cannot have decorated this part of the villa, if we accept
the dating devised by von Rohden. Rizzo suggests that either the reliefs might
have been removed from an older area and stored for possible re-use, or that
Lanciani's dating should be moved back by a few decades. There is no evidence
to support the latter idea, and so the first seems more likely, that the reliefs
were removed from the northern complex and piled up when the villa was redecorated
with marble.

Rizzo concludes that there were two phases of decoration of the villa at Marino,
one about 50-40 BC, the other dating to the first half of the 1st century AD.
Campana reliefs were used heavily in this second phase, (about 90 % of the finds
date from this period.) A few reliefs are types or variants to be dated later
in the 1st century AD; but there are not sufficient examples to suggest another
major phase of decoration, and these plaques probably represent restorations
carried out from time to time.

Fig. 5

CATALOGUE:
3 fragments

1. G 10/80 BB 9 G (3) SF no. 80.162
H 11 cm; W 17.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of botttom left-hand corner of slab, including bottom squared
ridge and bottom edge (11.5 cm). Decoration: Left - double end of
tail of cloak. center - legs of figure kneeling on right knee. Right
- edge of grapes overflowing from basket.

Back: no mortar.

2. G 10/88 X 16 Y (3) SF no. 88.11
H 8 cm; W 8 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of upper right part of relief, including section of upper
framing ridge. Above ridge, bottom edge of palmette frieze. Below
ridge, part of tendril with the top of a bunch of grapes.

Back: mortar.

3. G 10/85 X 23 (1) SF no. 85.10
H 12 cm; W 11.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of bottom left corner of slab including bottom ridge (flat)
and bottom edge (11 cm). Decoration: torso and right leg of figure
in profile to right, kneeling on right knee.

Back: mortar traces.

Only three Via Gabina Site 10 fragments can be identified with
this type, from two different plaques.

TYPE 5: Reconstruction

Maximum height 35.5 cm; Maximum width 45.5 cm; Th 2 cm

At the top is a frieze of palmettes linked by double-line swags. Below is a
ridge, square in section, similar to that at the bottom. The relief shows opposed
bearded satyrs, an old one to the left and a young one with thick hair to the
right, both wearing lionskins, which hang down behind to the rear heel. Each
satyr kneels on the forward knee, and they face each other on either side of
a gnarled vine, with the two parts of the forking trunk wrapped round each other
and branching out left and right, and with tendrils carrying leaves and bunches
of grapes. The satyrs are each picking bunches of grapes and putting them in
the overflowing baskets on the ground in front of them. With his left hand the
right-hand satyr places a bunch of grapes in the basket, while with his right
hand he reaches up to another bunch still hanging on the vine. The left satyr
holds a twig with his left hand, while he picks a bunch of grapes from the end
of it with his right hand.

COMMENT

These fragments belong to von Rohden's second type of grape-picking, of which
the type example is from the Townley Collection, now in the British Museum.
A fragment of a plaque of a type derived from this was coloured. The background
was light yellow, the skin was brownish yellow, and the grapes, hair and beard
were bright red. The G10 fragments, however, bore no traces of colouring. The
type is closely related to von Rohden's first type, of which the basic example
is that found at Marino. It has an unbearded young satyr to the left and a bearded
and bald satyr to the right.

DATE

Von Rohden dates the Marino type to the period of Augustus, and the G10 type
to the first third of the 1st century AD.

Fig. 6

Fragment of right bottom side (4 cm) of slab. Decoration: bottom
of cloak of right-hand satyr.

Back: mortar.

2. G 10/87 Z 21/22 R (2) SF no. 87.62
H 6 cm; W 7 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of right side, including right edge (5 cm). Decoration:
tendril, bunch of grapes, leaves.

Back: traces of mortar.

3. G1 0/87 Z 21/22 R (3) SF no. 87.76
H 11 cm; W 6.5 cm; Th 1.5 cm

Fragment of right side, including right edge (9.2 cm). Decoration:
tendril, bunch of grapes, three leaves, fragment of upper ridge, rounded.

Back: no mortar. Comment: joins 87-77.

4. G 10/87 Z 21/22 R (3) SF no. 87.77
H 5.5 cm; W 6.3 cm; Th 1.5 cm

Fragment of top right of body, including rounded ridge. Decoration:
part of palmette, rounded ridge with two (of three) slashes, tendril,
part of leaf (continued on 87-77).

Back: mortar. Comment: mortar must have been cleaned off adjacent
fragment.

5. G 10/87 Z 21/22 R (2) SF no. 87.58
H 9.1 cm; W 10 cm; Th 1.5 cm

Fragment (in two parts) of upper part of relief, including part of
upper rounded ridge (5 cm). Decoration: (a) part of palmette frieze;
(b) upper ridge, rounded, with group of three slashes; (c) part of
tendril, bunch of grapes, leaf.

Back: mortar.

6. G 10/87 Z 21/22 R (3) SF no. 87.84
H 3 cm; W 9.2 cm; Th 1.5 cm

Fragment of upper part. Decoration: parts of two double-line swags
between palmettes.

Back: traces of mortar.

7. G 10/82 U 21 S (1) SF no. 82.42
H 12.2 cm; W 12 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of upper part, including top edge of palmettes. Decoration:
a. two palmettes; b. one and two parts of double-line swags between
palmettes; c. upper ridge, rounded; d. part of tendril with part of
leaf.

Back: mortar.

8. G 10/80 BB 9 G (5) SF no. 80.211
H 6.8 cm; W 8.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of upper part of relief. Decoration: upper part of head
of bearded satyr, looking left.

Back: mortar.

9. G 10/82 U 21 S (2) SF no. 82.22
H 10 cm; W 14 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of upper right of body. Decoration: part of bearded satyr,
grapes, leaf.

Back: not known.

There are at least four examples represented, two being 1.5 cm
thick and two being 2 cm thick.

TYPE 6: reconstruction

Maximum height: 34 cm; Maximum width 42 cm; Th 1.5 / 2 cm

At the top is a frieze of palmettes, linked by double-line swags. Below is
a ridge, rounded in section, decorated at intervals with triple slashes, sloping
from from upper left to bottom right. At the bottom is a ridge, also rounded.
The relief shows two satyrs picking grapes: (left to right) a. young satyr with
thick hair in profile to right, wearing panther-skin cloak fastened on left
shoulder, crouching on toes, picking bunch of grapes into a fold of his cloak;
b. basket on ground, overflowing with grapes; c. vine, with trunk splitting
into two branches which stretch left and right over and behind the two satyrs,
bearing bunches of grapes and leaves; d. basket on ground, overflowing with
grapes; e. old, bearded and bald satyr in profile to left, wearing panther-skin
cloak fastened on left shoulder, crouching on toes, supporting a bunch of grapes
with his left hand and breaking it off with his right.

COMMENT

The Via Gabina Site 10 Campana relief, Type 6 is von Rohden's fourth type of
satyrs picking grapes. There is a complete plaque of the type in the British
Museum, and it is closely matched by another plaque from the Sloane Collection.
Von Rohden quotes other close parallels in museums in Berlin, Copenhagen, Würzburg,
Paris, Milan, Florence, the Vatican, Rome, and Vienna, as well as in the dal
Pozzo drawings.

The type resembles closely von Rohden's first type, from Marino. To the left
there is a beardless satyr with thick hair, and to the right a bearded and bald
satyr. Just like the Marino satyrs, and unlike all other types, the Via Gabina
Site 10 satyrs wear panther skins, which are fastened on the left shoulder and
hang down in front. The division of the vine also matches. Yet there are some
differences. The satyrs do not kneel, but crouch on their toes with their thighs
resting on their calves, with the feet set back. The young man picks the grapes
into a receptacle, which is probably a fold of his panther-skin cloak. The old
satyr supports a bunch of grapes with his left hand, which he breaks off with
his right. The upper frieze is also different, the Marino frieze having alternate
stylized palmettes and lotus flowers, each element being formed of a wide, flat
strip of clay, while these Via Gabina friezes have only palmettes, with an indentation
in each element.

DATE

Von Rohden considers that the stylistic characteristics of all examples of
his fourth type belong to the 2nd century AD. Other examples of the type were
found in the complexes at Pietro Papa in Rome. Rizzo accepts von Rohden's 2nd-century
dating for them, as does Borbein who relates them to the frieze from the Basilica
Ulpia dated to 123 A.D. on the evidence of brick stamps. There thus seems no
reason for overturning von Rohden's dating for the type.

Back: no mortar. Comment: Perhaps part of same slab as no. 2 below.
Either part of a Campana relief with formalised decoration or part
of an antefix.

2. G 10/88 V 18 (1) SF no. 88.8
H 10.5 cm; W 11.5 cm; Th 2.2 cm

Part of body of slab, with formalised plant decoration and part of
star-like object.

Back: mortar.

Comment: Perhaps part of same slab as no. 1 above - the fabric and
the thickness are the same. Probably part of a Campana relief slab
with formalised decoration. The fragment is too wide to be the left
half of an antefix.

3. G 10/81 EE 23 (2) SF no. 81-81
H 8 cm; W 7.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Fragment of left (?) edge of slab. Group of three lines emanating
from hollow partial oval.

Back: no mortar.

Comment: This might be the edge of a Campana slab with formalised
decoration. It is not part of the same slab as 1 and 2 because of
its thickness. The nature of the decoration is not clear; and so it
could be drawn upside down. But it must be from the side of a plaque,
not from the top or bottom.

TYPE
8: 'Large Frieze'

1. G 10/85 AA 22 C (2)
H 9.8 cm; W 10.5 cm; Th 2 cm

Maximum width of each element of frieze arcade 9 cm H of element
8 cm

Fragment of top of frieze of relief. Decoration: finial-like elements
within arcade, resting on bifurcated foot, joined at edge of arch
to repeat of pattern by a flower-like element; below, upper ridge,
rectangular in section, of relief panel.

Back: no mortar.

Comment: This frieze has arch-elements twice as wide as those on
the other panels except Herm type.

If the reliefs were all 45 cms wide, 157 would have formed a continuous frieze
round the peristyle - if that is where they belonged.

Discussion

All of the work of previous scholars on Campana reliefs which is described
in the introduction is relevant in various ways to the interpretation of the
fragments of Campana reliefs found at Via Gabina Site 10. This previous work
has been concerned, however, mainly with origins and chronology, or stylistic
development, or the more spectacular finds, like the still painted revetment
plaques from the temple of Apollo Palatinus, or with the imperial significance
of the iconography.

Understandably, because of the lack of information, little attention has been
paid to the way in which cresting plaques, which form the majority of finds
and were the sole category found at G10, were used in private houses in the
late first-century BC and the first century AD. The only study to confront the
problem directly has been that by Calderone in 1975. The special contribution
of the finds at G10 is that they draw fresh attention to the question of the
ways in which cresting plaques may have been used in the decoration of houses
of this period.

Types and Phasing

The 58 fragments from Via Gabina Site 10 are divided between the six figured
types as set out in Tables 1-2. The fragments are assumed to be a representative
random sample of the Campana reliefs originally decorating the villa. If this
assumption is correct, then three phases can be proposed (Tables 3-4).1The preponderance (50%) of fragments are of Type 1 (showing Two Satyrs at
a Basin). This fact suggests that the first and main phase of decoration of
the villa occurred in the Augustan period. The other possibility might be that
this group of reliefs had been kept in store and were used in a later period,
perhaps the Augustan-Claudian period when the reliefs of types 3, 4 and 5 were
installed. The general opinion, however, is that, even within the same type,
exact replicas were not available for replacements. Rizzo, for example, in discussing
the reliefs of vintaging and grape-treading at Marino, Villa di Voconio Pollione,
comments: 'Le altre lastre con Vendemmia e con Pigiatura, tutte appartenenti
ad altre varianti, è possibile siano state usate nella decorazione degli stessi
ambienti ma in fasi successive di restauro.' 2
Thus, if identical replacements were unavailable within the same period, making
it necessary to supply reliefs from a different and later mould, then it is
most unlikely that almost 50% of the reliefs installed at G10 were supplied
from a cache which had lain in the stores at the manufacturer's premises for
at least ten or twenty years, and perhaps for longer.

The second phase of decoration occurred in the Augustan-Claudian period, using
slabs of types 4 (Satyrs Treading Grapes) and 5 (Satyrs Picking Grapes), perhaps
paired. The phase also probably included the use of slabs of Type 3.

Type 3 (Decoration of a Herm) is thought by von Rohden and Winnefeld to be
'late'; but, while their opinion that none of the series is fine enough to be
Augustan may be accepted, it is unclear how these reliefs are to be dated outside
that period. There is no independent archaeological evidence, and so it seems
best to relate them to the main series of other Bacchic scenes (vintaging and
grape treading). The five fragments of this type are therefore assigned here
to an Augustan- Claudian date.

Type 2 (Race Crash) might represent a third phase, as the type is often dated
to the Claudian/ early-Neronian period. There are reasons, however, why this
might not be so. First, the type is represented at Via Gabina Site 10 by only
two fragments, which fit together and therefore come from the same slab. It
seems unlikely that a whole phase of decoration would be represented by such
a small amount of evidence. Second, the dating of the type has been influenced
by the assumption that the decorated metae in the circus show the posts after
their gilding by Claudius, and that, therefore, the reliefs cannot be earlier
than the later part of Claudius' reign or the early part of Neros.3
Humphrey, however, counsels caution, as the metae were decorated earlier than
their gilding by Claudius.4
Consequently, it may well be the case that the Race Crash slab is part of the
Augustan - Claudian phase 2 in which the slabs of types 3, 4 and 5 were installed.

A third phase of decoration is represented by the nine fragments of Type 6
(Satyrs Picking Grapes), which date to the 2nd century AD. This suggests a 2nd-century
program of careful repair and refurbishment at least of the vintaging Campana
reliefs in the building. No other type found on the site seems to have needed
to be replaced in this way.

In summary, therefore, the fragmentary Campana reliefs point to three periods
of decoration, dated Augustan, Augustan-Claudian, and early-2nd century AD.
There might have been the insertion of slabs of Type 2 about the middle of the
1st century AD. The dating of this type, however, is uncertain, as is the date
of Type 3. Given the small number of fragments from these two types, they have
been included with the totals of Augustan-Claudian types. The phasing is summarised
in the tables.

Function

Two problems need to be considered. First, in what area or areas of the villa
were Campana reliefs used, and, second, how were they used within that area?

First, in what area of the villa were the plaques used? The distribution of
the finds on the plan seems to be significant. It is summarised in Table 5,
which uses the coordinates of the plan of the site (but is extended longitudinally).
Each of the digits represents a fragment of types 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Type 2
needs not be considered because the two fragments were found built into a tank
and therefore had been moved deliberately in antiquity from their original site.
The four corners of the peristyle are indicated by letter C.

The findspots of the fragments of Campana reliefs are shown in the appendix.
The plot of the find-spots shows that all the fragments, except for a small
group in grid BB9, lie within or approximately to north and south of the peristyle.
The traces of ploughing on the site run from north to south, and so any spread
of material might be expected to extend to these two cardinal points. On these
grounds the distribution of the fragments of Campana reliefs suggests that they
may well have served for the decoration of the peristyle and perhaps for a room
opening onto its northern side because of the unrelated subject matter of the
Type 2 plaques.

How were the plaques used in the peristyle? There are two main kinds of Campana
relief, one with a decorative frieze at top and bottom, and the other with a
decorative frieze only at the top. The first kind are revetment plaques (known
in the Italian and German literature as 'lastre di rivestimento, Verkleidungsplatten'),
which are provided with holes to allow attachment and were used to cover an
area of wall. The second kind are cresting plaques (known in the Italian and
German literature as 'lastre di sovraposizione, lastre di coronamento, Aufsatzplatten'),
which have no attachment holes and were developed from the perforated crestings
used on Etruscan temples. These were used to complete the top edge of a portion
of a building. The two kinds differ, as von Rohden and Borbein have pointed
out,5not
only in their design but also in their sizes, which for Via Gabina Site 10 are
set out in Table 6. The Campana fragments from G10 are all of the second type,
both in design and size, and so only the function of such cresting plaques will
be considered here.

The problem of the use of cresting plaques has been considered by von Rohden,
Borbein and Calderone.6
Von Rohden was convinced that they were normally used on the outsides of buildings,
on the edge of the roof, engaged with simae, as were pierced crestings; but
Borbein pointed out in objection that the cresting plaques (unlike pierced crestings)
are too big and heavy for the simae on which they would have rested, that they
would have presented too much resistance to the wind and the relatively small
bottom ledge of the plaques would not have given enough support, even if it
was set in lead, that far more cresting plaques than simae have survived, that
a considerable number of cresting plaques are more or less undamaged and so
could not have been attached in a free-standing position at the top of a building
(because they would have survivied in fragmented form), and that they predominate
among the later reliefs and seem more and more to have displaced revetment plaques.

Von Rohden and Winnefeld considered other possibilities.7
They noted that, even though the use seemed 'die Form des oberen Abschlusses
geradezu zu widersprechen', in some cases cresting plaques had certainly been
inserted in walls to function as pictures, for example two plaques with representations
of a Bacchic altar, which had been set into the side walls of an aedicula of
a house under S. Cecilia in Trastevere8
with a tufa relief in the back wall, or the relief of the Tragedies, which decorated
the base of the aedicula in the grave of P. Numitorius Hilarus.9

Borbein's conclusion was that, even though the form of cresting plaques was
related to that of pierced crestings, they must nevertheless have been attached
to masonry walls, as a kind of 'cresting' upper edge of a wall decoration. This
is the only way in which a cresting plaque can have a rational function. The
plaque was set into the plaster in such a way that the mortar or stucco could
be wiped over the bottom edge, so that the front of the smooth ridge framing
the picture lay in the same plane as the surface of the wall. In this way the
relief was held sufficiently firmly. The bottom edge under the plaster did not
need to be particularly big, because it did not carry the full weight of the
plaque, which was anchored to the mortar behind it when the wall had dried hard.
Nails were used to fasten revetment plaques to walls; but for cresting plaques
they were not needed. Borbein concluded finally that the reason why cresting
plaques in the end became the dominant form of Campana reliefs was that they
were used in large numbers on the walls of the inner rooms of masonry buildings.

Borbein nevertheless admitted the possibility of cresting plaques being used
occasionally on the outsides of buildings, in order to explain the existence
of a single fragment of a plaque which comes from an outside corner.10
He noted the supporting parallel evidence of marble reliefs in the outer walls
of temples. Calderone, however, suggested that such a fragment might find a
use inside buildings if Campana cresting plaques were used on projecting door-frames,
as described by Vitruvius (de arch. IV, 6) and illustrated for example on Pompeiian
wall-paintings, which have a space (hyperthyrum), sometimes shown decorated,
between the cornice (corona) and the lintel (supercilium).11
Her suggestion is attractive, and, although Campana revetment plaques were used
on the outside of buildings until the end of the 1st century BC, for example
to patch the Capitolium at Cosa, or again for the larger-scale decoration of
the temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome (where they were soon replaced
by marble decoration), there seems to be no evidence that cresting plaques were
used at all on such exposed outer walls.12

Borbein's theory, that cresting plaques were used on inner walls as the upper
edge of wall decoration, is supported at Via Gabina Site 10 by the facts that
no attachment holes for nails were found in any of the fragments and that almost
every fragment had traces or considerable quantities of mortar on its reverse
face. There is also some archaeological evidence from other sites that cresting
plaques were used to decorate inside rooms in this way. In 1839, for example,
Nibby reported on excavations in Rome in the area of the Baths of Titus, presumably
in part of Nero's Golden House: 'una gran sala media aperta verso il cortile
... Le pareti erano impellicciate di lastre di marmi di diverso colore a due
ordini di riquadri; il fregio pare che fosse di terracotta con bassorilievi
dipinti, poichè varii pezzi ne furono scoperti nello scavo; la cornice o la
imposta della volta era costituita da un ovolo intagliato sopra un fondo turchino,
ornato di piccole figure in rilievo di stucco dorato.' There is also a beguiling
suggestion by Borbein that other similar but unrecorded finds might have influenced
Baroque and Renaissance interior decoration, for very similar friezes are known
from this period, for example in the Casino Pio IV in the Vatican gardens, which
was designed by Pirro Ligorio, one of the most knowledgeable classical archaeologists
of the 16th century, and was built in the years 1558-61.13

The evidence is thus plainly not extensive; but in combination with the evidence
of the find-places of the Via Gabina Site 10 fragments, it supports the idea
that the Via Gabina Site 10 Campana reliefs decorated the interior of the villa.
This 'interior', however, on the evidence of the discoveries under the Baths
of Titus, in what must have been a part of Nero's palace, could consist of a
room adjacent to and open to a peristyle. It is therefore reasonable to interpret
some of the Via Gabina Site 10 fragments in the same way, as perhaps decorating
the walls of an oecus which opens onto the peristyle. At the same time, however,
it seems unlikely that so many different types of plaque could have been used
within a single room, and also that, assuming only a small part of the original
plaques have survived or been discovered, there is far too great a bulk of plaques
for a single room. It seems best, therefore, to follow the impression first
given by the distribution of the fragments, and to assume that the plaques decorated
the whole of the peristyle.

What, then, might have been the scheme of wall-decoration of the peristyle
and oecus, of which the cresting plaques formed an upper edge? As the earliest
group of plaques is Augustan, it is assumed that the scheme in this part of
Via Gabina Site 10 belongs to the second phase of the Second Style (c. 40-15
BC), or to the first phase of the Third Style (c. 20 BC - AD 25). Within all
the styles, however, including the First Style, there was a tendency to decorate
the long walls of peristyles with a paratactic scheme, breaking up the length
of the wall, but also emphasising its continuity and setting up a correspondence
to the colonnades by means of painted columns opposite the real ones.14
For this reason the Via Gabina Site 10 plaques have been reconstructed as grouped
between painted or even marble pilasters. [Marble pilaster capitals and bases
were among the finds of the excavation (Pl.
5 & 6)] The scheme
is complicated, however, by the doorways. In the reconstruction we have followed
the hypothesis of Calderone and have supposed that each door may have been flanked
by pillars or pilasters, real or painted, that the panel over each door may
have been filled with figured decoration, and that at Via Gabina Site 10 the
decoration may have been supplied by Campana plaques. The effect will have been
something like that of the earlier (50-40 BC) painted doorway on the west wall
of Triclinium G in the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale.15
The scheme may not, however, have been as neat, as the real doorways of G10
could not necessarily be accommodated so comfortably in a scheme as could those
of a painted scheme on a blank wall.

But as stated, the majority of plaques would have been accommodated by a frieze
between real or painted pilasters (Fig.7). Perhaps
even a continuous frieze above the pilasters (Fig. 8).
A model is provided by the wall-decoration of the cryptoportico of the House
of Cryptoportico at Pompeii, dated C. 40-30 B.C. The scheme, which continues
into the oecus at its south east end, is articulated not with columns or pilasters,
but with herms. The main zone between each pair of herms is relatively plain,
with purple orthostats in the cryptoportico and a continuous yellow surface
in the oecus, while the lower zone is filled with a perspectival meander running
between the bases of the herms and with a continuous vegetal scroll in the oecus.
At the top of the main zone there is a continuous figured frieze in the cryptoportico
and a frieze composed of figured panels imitating small shuttered paintings
for the oecus, at the point where one might otherwise expect an illusionistic
opening to a vista beyond the wall.16
The Campana reliefs at Site 10 might easily have fulfilled the role of the painted
frieze or panels of the cryptoportico and oecus at the House of the Cryptoportico
and this is the substitution put forth in our reconstructions (Figs. 7,
8 and 9).17
One unresolved difficulty is the whether the reliefs were inserted at a level
matching the front edge of the peristyle roof, with relatively neutral panels
filling the space between the relief and the inner and higher edge of the roof
where it would have joined the back wall. Such an arrangement can be seen on
the First Style wall-decoration in the garden of the Pompeian house IX 3,2.
Alternatively, the scheme might have been carried up to the roof, filling the
whole wall-space, with the reliefs at the top. One other possibility is that
a ceiling might have been introduced, leaving a triangular roof-space, with
the result that the painted decoration and pilasters on the back wall would
have been the same height as the real columns of the peristyle. The insertion
of such a ceiling , however, is not borne out by the evidence at Site 10. The
likely solution, therefore, may be that the decorative scheme filled the wall
and that the reliefs were placed at the junction with the roof.18

The distribution of the various types within this scheme is a matter of very
little more than conjecture, as far as the internal evidence is concerned. Recorded
schemes have similarly not been recovered from other sites; but analysis of
the surviving reliefs makes it probable that some plaques formed friezes of
repeating types, or of variants of repeating types (such as Nike tauroctona),
while others set side by side sets of two or three subjects that were different
but which were nevertheless linked by a common theme (Bacchic, for example),
or forming a cycle (such as Heracles and Theseus).19

On the basis of these conclusions it has been possible to make some suggestions
as to how the fragments from Via Gabina Site 10 might have been used (Figs.
7, 8 and 9).
The fragments of Type 1 (Two Satyrs at Basin) form about half of those surviving,
and so they are likely to have been set up in a repeating series. They are also
the earliest type found at Via Gabina Site 10, and so this type is likely to
have formed the whole of the original scheme in the peristyle. Types 3, 4 and
5, however, which all have Bacchic themes and were therefore probably used in
a triple combination, also seem to come from the peristyle. In view of their
later date they are assumed to have been part of a scheme of partial redecoration
of the peristyle. In the hypothetical reconstruction of the scheme of decoration,
therefore, Type 1 has been assigned to two of the walls of the peristyle, and
types 3, 4 and 5 to the other two walls.

Type 2 (Race Crash) has no clear links of content with types 1, 3, 4 and 5,
and so it has been assigned conjecturally to the walls of the oecus, where it
may have been paired with a plaque showing a four-horse chariot galloping in
the circus, though there is no surviving fragment of this last type at G10.
Because the fragments of Type 2 were found built into the masonry of a nearby
late tank, it would seem that these plaques were not part of the last decorative
scheme for the oecus (Fig. 10). Type 6 has
not been taken into account in the reconstruction, as it is best explained as
second-century repair and replacement for plaques of Type 5.

This suggested location and arrangement of the Campana reliefs at Via Gabina
site 10 is based on a certain amount of evidence. The hypothesis attempts to
set the fragments in a chronological, architectural and decorative context (Figs.
11, 12,
13); but it must be urged
that it is largely conjectural, and the scheme is proposed mainly as a model
against which future evidence or evaluations of existing evidence may be tested.

Social Status

The record of the discoveries of Campana reliefs shows that, they were used
not only on religious buildings, but on a variety of public buildings, including
baths, basilicas, theatres and fora, as well as in funerary structures.20
In the context of Via Gabina Site 10, however, the important category is that
of private houses and villas.

The information reported from the excavations of private buildings, at which
Campana reliefs are documented, is for the most part insufficient to clarify
what type of domus or villa we are dealing with, or what other decorations were
used with the reliefs, or what, if any, the decorative scheme was.21
The finds are concentrated in villas located in Etruria and Latium, and they
seem, as for example at Sette Finestre, largely to be medium-large villas, divided
into a pars urbana and a pars rustica, in other words to be based on slave-labour.22

Strazzulla has noted that some of the properties in which Campana reliefs have
been found were imperial residences, for example the villa of Livia at Prima
Porta, the villa di Punta Eolo at Ventotene, the villa of Tiberius on Capri,
and the imperial ship from Lake Nemi.23The rare stamps on Campana reliefs may even suggest that the imperial family
was involved in production of the slabs. Another group of reliefs has been found
on properties belonging to the senatorial class. In the city of Rome the reliefs
include those found on the sites of the horti of Maecenas on the Esquiline and
of the horti sallustiani, and on the villa found near Pietra Papa, at the site
of Rome's river harbour.24The most significant find, however, in relation to the Via Gabina Site 10
reliefs, is that made in 1880 at Marino.25
A big villa was discovered, built in the second half of the 1st century BC.
It belonged to the gens Voconia, which seems to have originated from Ariccia,
and it is possible that it was the property of one of the three Voconii recorded
in the historical record. The first was legatus or praefectus classis in 73
BC with Lucullus in the war against Mithridates. The second was Pompey's legatus
cum imperio in 49 BC. The third was aedilis plebis in 60 BC. The Q. Voconius
named on some of the water-pipes and on an inscription is probably, according
to Lanciani, one of the family's last owners of the villa, in the reigns of
Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. The Campana reliefs, however, all date from the
period of Augustus or the Julio-Claudians, and so they are dated to a decoration
of the villa by one of the immediate successors of the Voconii who were recorded
in the 1st century BC. Their importance arises from the coincidence of types
with those of G10. They include the subjects of both vintaging and grape-treading.26

Although Rizzo concluded on the evidence available to her that the vintaging
and grape-treading types were only known from Marino,27
both in fact are now seen to have been found in the same form at Via Gabina
Site 10, differing only in the form of the crowning palmettes. The scenes on
the reliefs are probably derived from the same matrices at each site; but they
have been used in combination with matrices for different upper borders. It
may be assumed, therefore, that the villa at Marino and Via Gabina Site 10 were
being redecorated at about the same time, during theAugustan-Claudian period,
and that the workshop which operated at Marino also produced the Campana reliefs
of vintaging and grape-treading for Via Gabina Site 10. On this basis it may
be concluded that the Campana reliefs of Via Gabina Site 10, although not necessarily
an indicator of senatorial status, are certainly compatible with the possibility
that the villa's residents belonged to the same senatorial class as the gens
Voconia at Marino, if this can be supported on other grounds.

1 The decoration of the small
numbers of fragments of types 7 and 8 is different in kind and scale and is
omitted from the discussion.

17 The author of this report
believes a continuous frieze of plaques, with one joining to the next without
interruption whether between the pilasters at the height of the capitals or
above the pilasters and capitals, (Fig. 7 and 8), the most likely arrangement
for the first and all subsequent decorations of the peristyle, while Widrig,
the director of the excavation and editor of all sections of the Via Gabina
Villas, prefers a staggered placement of plaques, at least for the peristyle's
last decorative reworking (Fig. 9) - see Ling 1991, 56, Fig. 56. Therefore three
possible schemes are illustrated by hypothetical reconstruction drawings.

18 In this case the arrangement
of the elements of the scheme is identical, although some will have been enlarged
or heightened. A consequence would be that the pilaster would not have been
the same height as the columns of the peristyle.